The Joy of Being Free...

To my Grandchildren....

Romans 8:1, “[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be in prison? To not be able to go where you wanted to go or do what you wanted to do. To be told where to be, what to wear and what to eat every minute of every day, week after week, month after month and year after year...

Sin is a prison that we cannot break out of. Sin keeps us in bondage and condemns us to a life of hardship serving it. Then when we die we must pay the price for our sin and that is eternal death/punishment in a place called hell, that was created for the devil and his angels.

Without Christ we cannot hope to be set free from this. We cannot earn it ourselves. We cannot be "good enough" to earn salvation or pay our fine. We have all broken God's law. We have lied, stolen, been greedy, hated, wanted things that belonged to others....we sin continually.

Reading through the Old Testament and seeing how many people were put to death for violating God's law and I begin to see how serious sin is and how wonderful the plan of redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He stood in our place and took our punishment. He gave us His righteousness because we have none of our own. Let me say that again...He was treated like He was a sinner, even though He never committed a sin, and we are treated as righteous even though we sin all the time.

We are set free by the sacrifice Jesus became. We (those who have repented, and believe on the Lord Jesus for our salvation) are not condemned but set free from the prison of sin and given eternal life with our Lord.

When we are given salvation, our heart is changed, we desire the things of God. We hated God before but now we follow hard after Christ and pray to be transformed into the image of Christ.

Will we be able to live a perfect life committing no sin while still here on earth? No but our sin will bother us and lead us to the practice of confession and repentance.